Abaas Mpindi is the co-founder and CEO of Media Challenge Initiative (MCI). Since 2017, MCI has worked with 3,000 journalism students, and founded more than 10 youth media startups. A mobile newsroom delivers skills programs to 17 Ugandan universities; the Next Gen Journalist activity strand has trained more than 130 program fellows in solutions-based journalism for social change. The MCI Media Hub, based at the organization’s multi-functional Kabalagala headquarters, provides a space for innovators (such as the fact-checking Debunk Media Initiative) to disrupt the status quo. Mpindi says, “People wake up looking for solutions. We need to document these challenges and provide people with existing responses. As a citizen of a continent whose progress has been restricted by stereotypes, I believe solutions journalism can cover Africa’s unreported contributions, innovations and urgency. In an era of clickbait and disinformation, controversy is attractive; it is important therefore to positively adopt the same emotional communication techniques that are used by purveyors of misinformation.”
Nurturing a Media Landscape that Manifests a Positive Future
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